


Passive

by Luciel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Internal Conflict, One-sided Conversation, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), self-talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 14:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15487437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luciel/pseuds/Luciel
Summary: “When you really die some day I won’t even believe it. I’ll just think it’s another one of your tricks. I’ll keep coming to speak to you casually as if you are alive, even though you’re really dead."Post-Infinty War, Thor tries to mourn Loki while maintaining hope that Loki will return some day. Featuring the lock of Loki's hair Thor used to have braided into his own.





	Passive

“You make me do this too often.”

Thor put the little glass of mead down and removed the lock of black hair from its wooden box and cloth wrappings. The mead did not taste very good; Thor was better with wheat than bees, and had always preferred ale. But he had made the mead because Loki had always liked it, and that was how offerings worked.

The golden liquid looked correct next to the candle, anyway.

“This isn’t much of a ritual anymore, you know. More of a chat. It’s hard to take you seriously when you die every other year.”

Thor grinned at the lock of hair, and ran a hand over his own. Awfully short – too short to braid the long black strands into now. Not that he would do that again anyway, since it was only a matter of time before Loki came back. The first time he had done it was fine, “fool me once, shame on you,” was a relevant Midgardian adage, but if he mourned Loki the same way again he would deserve the mockery he would surely receive when he was found out.

Thor did like a bit of a chat though, however one-sided it was.

“When you really die some day I won’t even believe it. I’ll just think it’s another one of your tricks. I’ll keep doing this sort of casual thing even though you’re really dead. Your spirit will be listening to me, wondering why I’m not speaking to you appropriately, and this will be why. Do you think you’ll mind? Do spirits like to be treated differently once they’ve died than they did when they were alive?”

He thought for a moment. Maybe dead spirits wanted to be addressed by Asgardians the way most Asgardians liked to be addressed by the people of Midgard. He shook his head.

“You can’t hear me now, probably, unless you’ve devised some way to eavesdrop on me when I’m talking to you – I’m sure you have, now that I think about it – but if you’re not listening, I’ll have to tell you when I see you next. Wouldn’t want to surprise you when you’re dead. Maybe it’ll stop you repeating this joke over and over.”

The Midgardians seemed concerned about Thor’s mourning process. He was helping them in the aftermath of Thanos’s snap, but did not mourn those lost in it; he was confident they would be salvaged. He mourned his people publicly and consistently after Thanos’s devastation of their ship, and his friends understood that. But it worried them that he did not mourn Loki anymore, though they did not comment.

They need not worry about that, Thor told himself. He had thought about Loki’s “death,” how it had happened, what he knew of his brother, everything that had gone wrong since. He concluded that Loki simply could not be dead. He did not understand how Loki had managed to escape, but of course he must have, because he was Loki. Besides, a Loki knew a knife would be too simple a weapon to use against Thanos, and Loki rarely went for simple when complicated would do.

So, Loki was not dead, and was pulling a prank, or was working on his own plans in secret.

“I hope you’re working on something in secret,” Thor said to Loki’s hair in response to that thought. “If you’re just sitting around somewhere watching theater again I really will kill you.”

He took a sip of the mead he had brought for Loki. He often stole sips of his brother’s drinks when Loki was physically present; Thor doubted he would mind this now. He frowned at the quality.

“I took the time to make this mead for you, and if I find out that you have been doing nothing this whole time I am going to force you to drink all of it to atone. It tastes very bad.”

His laugh sounded hollow to his own ear.

“How long will you be gone?” He took a few individual strands of the black fiber between his finger and thumb. The light from the candle flickered over his hand, and he felt like he was home again, and not in this foreign realm of steady white lights surrounded by strangers. “I don’t know why you won’t tell me what’s going on, Loki. I cannot believe this is only a joke, with all we’ve talked about since your last ‘death.’ You must be up to something, but I can’t understand why you will not contact me. I might be able to help you.”

He watched the hair, tension in his jaw. He did not expect the strands to respond, but he gave them a moment to anyway. The silence echoed, and Thor sighed.

“If you cannot explain to me what you are doing, I wish you would at least tell me that you are well. Some day I will begin to doubt you, if you are gone too long.”

Still no response from the hair at that taunt. Thor glanced around the room, hoping that he might find a book out of place, or his bedclothes moving, or some shadow flickering unnaturally across the wall, but nothing happened. Everything looked, sounded, and felt as it should. Thor lowered his eyes and tried not to feel disappointed.

“It has been a long time already, brother. It is not that I doubt you, but you are making it harder for me to believe that you meant all you said after Hela, before you…disappeared. I thought we were reconciled. I do not understand your distance now, when you led me to believe that we had grown close again.”

They had discussed a great deal on the ship before Thanos’s attack. It had not been easy, but they had managed for the most part to be gentle with each other. Thor knew now that he had hurt Loki horribly, but with much effort he believed he had regained his brother’s trust, and, he hoped, his favor. Some little part of him crumbled to think that he had been wrong, and that Loki would have feigned his renewed affection only to abandon him when the situation was no longer convenient.

Thor felt suddenly agitated. He did not want to continue on that line of thinking.

“No matter, I don’t know what you are doing that is taking so long without any communication at all. There are ways for you to get in touch with me that Thanos would not notice; I doubt he is primarily concerned with you at this time anyway. Is that why you have not sent any sign? That is conceited, even for you. To think that you matter enough to the owner of that much power that he would spare you any thought – so that you cannot give me any reassurance at all.

“Or maybe you really do know that you could contact me, but you refuse out of spite.”

That crumbling feeling was coming back, and Thor could hear the bite to his words he had taught himself to recognize and stop when talking to Loki recently.

“Are you still punishing me? Will you never tire of causing me guilt?”

His mouth tasted bitter, perhaps now the over-sweet flavor of mead had dissipated. He took another sip of the cloying drink and kept himself from shattering the glass as he set it back down. The flame from the candle danced as the table beneath it shook.

“I speak to you regularly now, but some day I will stop. It will grow boring some day. I know that you would not have gone against Thanos with a knife; you knew his power too well to do that. You would know better than to try to defend yourself and your people – _all_ of us – with a knife. It would have been _stupid_ , Loki. For all that you are, you have never been stupid. I cannot believe that of you.”

His voice was rising, but looking only at Loki’s hair, rather than into his face, was not enough to make him lower it.

“But some day I will have no choice. If you are too stubborn to make any sign of yourself known to show me that you will return some day, I will begin to think that you really were that stupid, and that he really did kill you. That you really died. That you really are dead. That…”

He stopped. Whatever had been crumbling inside him seemed to have vanished. His chest felt hollow. He made his voice louder, hoping to fill the hollowness with the sound of his anger.

“How could you have been so stupid?”

His words echoed through the room.

“ _Why won’t you speak to me_?”

Nothing.

The muscles that had tightened as Thor spoke released slowly as the ringing of his shout faded from his ears, and he slumped back in his chair. All the progress they had made with each other, and he had fallen back into old patterns, yelling his indignation at a lock of Loki’s hair in an empty room. It was futile. Loki could not hear him, and Thor would not want him to if all he could do was insult him. Maybe Loki was right to stay away.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Too little too late – but what did that mean, since he was alone? He looked back to the hair, and wondered briefly if the calm that trickled through him now was stability or helplessness.

“I am sorry, Loki. It is true that the day may come when I stop speaking to you so often, but I will not lose hope.”

He touched the lock of hair again, taking it up between his fingers and letting it rest gently in his palm. So fine, so silken. He tightened his hand around it softly.

“You have taught me to trust your cunning. I would be a fool to doubt you, whether you are alive or dead. Please know that no matter what you are doing now, I do not fault you.”

He brought the hair to press between his forehead and his thumb. He caught the fleeting scent of home.

“I miss you, brother.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title ripped from the song Passive by A Perfect Circle, which I strongly recommend if you liked this fic!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at sinaesthete.tumblr.com


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